period he determined to bequeath a portion of his rich library to Venice
for the use of students and the general public, and as an example to
other men. He was highly esteemed by the Venetians, and his house was
the meeting-place of the wise and the powerful. Boccaccio was his guest
here for many months; they talked and walked, and they sailed the canals
and the lagoons together in perfect sympathy; and there still exists a
letter of Petrarch to Boccaccio, asking the latter poet to come again,
and to stay longer next time.
Signor N. Barozzi, in a volume entitled _Petrarca e Venezia_, published
in Venice in 1874, reprints, from the old plan of the city, now in the
Archæological Museum, a rough sketch of Petrarch’s house during his
residence here between 1362 and 1368; and he seems to establish the fact
that it was hired by the poet, not presented to him by the city, as is
generally believed. It was then called the Palazzo del Molin, and it
stood near to the Ponte del Sepolcro on the Riva degli Schiavoni, a
broad promenade and wharf a short distance east of the Ducal Palace.
This house, according to Petrarch himself, was humble enough; it had two
towers, a style of architecture not uncommon in those days; and
according to Signor Barozzi it was, later, a monastery, and at the
present time is occupied as a barrack. If Signor Barozzi and the plan
are correct, it is _not_ the house marked by the tablet, and pointed out
in the guide-books as Petrarch’s, but the building on the corner of the
little Calle del Dose, and some forty or fifty paces to the east of the
generally accepted spot.
The two original towers of the Petrarch house disappeared long ago; the
entire front is new and ugly, and the rear portions, although they are
old and picturesque, do not date back to the Fourteenth Century. There
is, probably, no part of the mansion left, as Petrarch knew and loved
it, except, perhaps, the pavement of the court-yard. Even the old marble
well is not as old as the days of the great poet. The interior of the
establishment is not now seen of the public, except by permission of the
military authorities, but it is one of the most interesting of the
Landmarks of Venice, because of its association with the two immortal
men who once adorned it.
Petrarch from his tower had a perfect view of the city and of the
Adriatic, watching as he did the navies of the then known world as they
entered and left the harbor, and looking out over the sea and down upon
the crowds of busy men. His life here was, no doubt, a happy one; as
must be the life of any man who brings to Venice some knowledge of its
history, some idea of its art, some fondness for its traditions, and
letters of introduction to some of its men of mind in all professions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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